Return of the 4 o'clock fairytale hour

See here for an account of the police's rewriting of the Yuen Long attack story.

Off Target

 

Patriots' Pantomime

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Mirror, Mirror

Found this in somerone's Facebook post.  Clearly the British government has failed the test.

If music be the food of love, play not

Hong Kong's Education Secretary Kevin Yeung has instructed that: “Schools must not allow their students to play, sing or broadcast any songs which will disrupt the normal operation of schools, affect students’ emotions or contain political messages.”  Well, there goes the music syllabus!

The Private Beach Geography Quiz

Q. What do the following countries have in common:

• Algeria
• Bangladesh
• East Timor
• Eritrea
• Montenegro
• Slovakia
• South Sudan
• Suriname

?

On the Campaign Trail

As the Orange One hits the campaign trail again in what one can only hope will be a fruitless bid for a second term as president, we are faced once again with that curious question: why do some women (mostly whitre) vote for a serial liar who has a history of blatant sexism?  They even have their own website.  Well one answer may be provided by the lady on the right of the picture, who is demonstrating the intelligence of Women for Trump by not knowing which way up to hold her placard (no, I didn't doctor that part of the picture).

Stupidity aside, this article explores other reasons for the phenomenon, while this one argues that the female vote for Trump has been overstated.  And of course there are the diehard party faithful who would vote for a cockroach or slug if it stood as a Republican.  However, I think one big factor in 2016 was that Hillary Clinton was unpopular among a large segment of the female electorate - for some valid reasons, and a lot of invalid ones, like those bizarre pizza parlour child abuse conspiracy theories.  Some of that dislike was actually directed at her husband - following Tammy Wynette's advice to "Stand by Your Man" may actually have cost Hillary votes among those who profess "family values" most vociferously.

With Hillary out of the picture, and Joe Biden likely to pick an uncontentious woman as his running mate (Amy Klobuchar would be my giuess), it will be interesting to see whether Trump can keep his female support this time around.

Lessons in Stupidity

The Truth At Last

I'd like to teach the world not to sing

As the national anthem law comes into force, just over a year after the start of the Hong Kong protest movement, Education Secretary and all-round wanker Kevin Yeung declares that schoolchildren will be prohibited from singing songs in school which contain political messages expressing a political stance. So, no "March of the Volunteers" then?

Legal disclaimer: I am not insulting the national anthem, only the jerks who seek to use it as another weapon in their campaign to remove Hong Kong's freedoms.  "Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!" is a truly noble sentiment - in the right context.

Mixed Messages

In a couple of weeks it may become illegal for me to post this.

Big bad wolf in Granny's clothing

Former Hong Kong Justice Secretary Elsie Leung may look like a harmless grandma, but make no mistake, when future historians compile a Roll of Dishonour of those who have connived to enslave Hong Kong, her name will be high on the list alongside those of CY Leung and Maria Tam. Her claim yesterday that for a mainland security agency to operate in Hong Kong under China's new national security law for the SAR is no more worrying than it is for MI5 and MI6 to operate in the UK or the CIA in the USA is totally disingenuous.  Leung may pretend to be stupid, but she knows full well that those agencies are accountable to the elected governments of their countries, while whatever agency operates in Hong Kong will be accountable only to a brutal dictatorship that holds millions of its own citizens in captivity without trial, and is determined to stamp out the freedoms it once promised to Hong Kong.  Who is she trying to fool?

An Idiot Unmasked

Tales of Terror

I turned on the TV the other morning, and within the space of a few minutes was confronted by all three of these terrifying characters.  I really don't think they should transmit horror shows so early in the day when impressionable children may be watching.

The Gates of Mordor

Bombe Surprise!

After arresting a number of people accused of plotting bomb attacks in Hong Kong, the police described them as using violence “to intimidate in order to achieve political ends”.  So, exactly what the police themselves have been doing for nearly nine months now.

Now the government's budget proposes a 7% boost in police manpower.  There are two problems with this.  The first is that the last thing most Hongkongers want is more cops on the street when they have totally lost faith in the force already.  People are tired of being teargassed, pepper-sprayed, beaten over the head and having their freedom of assembly violently repressed.  Meanwhile the government continues to ignore widespread demnds for an independent inquiry into the force's conduct, even though some of its own erstwhile allies have joined the call for it.

The other problem is that the force has so thoroughly disgraced itself that it is hard to imagine it still being an attractive career option for anyone sincerely wanting to serve the community.  This means that most of the 2,543 extra posts created are likely to appeal only to thugs and bullies, of whom we have far too many in the force already.

Unfortunately, the government is following its usual "eat your shit first or you don't get your candy" strategy by lumping this increase together with other budget measures in a single bill, so that the only way democratic lawmakers can vote it down is to also reject the popular and much-needed relef measures in the budget.

Family business

Glad to see my Korean relatives are coming to town.  I guess they will be offering Seoul food!

A plague on your plague!

So the Cheung Chau Bun Festival joins the long list of mass events in Hong Kong being cancelled to halt the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus.  This is ironic, because according to historians, the festival originated out of Taoist rituals to drive off the evil spirits believed responsible for a plague which afflicted the island in the late Ching Dynasty.  If these rituals apparently worked a century ago, shouldn't we give them a chance to drive off the current affliction?

Another local institution suspended in the face of the virus is the Mark Six Lottery.  For no obvious reason, the date of the next draw on the Jockey Club website has been replaced for weeks now by the ungrammatical message above.  If the Jockey Club can still stage horse racing, why not the Mark Six?  In these troubling times, we all need to be able to buy a little bit of hope.

Why it happened